1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to a chocolate confectionery having a black or colored high resolution edible image deposited on an image-substrate coating that is dispersed on a surface of the chocolate confectionery. Preferably, the chocolate is milk or dark chocolate and the image-substrate coating is substantially white or light colored, which provides for excellent image contrast when edible high resolution images are printed thereon using edible inks applied by ink jet printing.
2. Related Background Art
It is known to form highly detailed images on milk and dark chocolates using pad printing with a white ink. However, the formation of high resolution colored images on milk and dark chocolate has been difficult due in part to the lack of contrast between the chocolate and the colored food dyes. Attempts to avoid this problem have included printing colored images on white chocolate. However, the typical dull white of white chocolate does not provide a very good contrast background for printing high resolution black or colored images. In addition, when you print directly on the chocolate surface the image tends to be prone to smearing and the image resolution is poor. Moreover, milk chocolate and dark chocolate have a much greater presence in the market place.
Frosting sheets have been used in the cake industry to provide a means of placing an ink jet printed color image on a cake. The frosting sheet is printed and then either placed on or bound to the top of the cake. There has, however, been no suggestion of printing on chocolate confectionery.
Groovychocolate.com sells a chocolate bar with a colored printed image on a relatively thick layer of hard white icing disposed in a shallow recess of the chocolate bar. The layer of icing is approximately 1.25 mm thick. Thus, the resulting substrate on which the colored image is printed is a separate layer which is quite noticeable, particularly when bitten by a person eating the chocolate bar.
A chocolate having a high resolution colored image on a non-delaminating integral edible image-substrate, particularly one prepared by ink jet printing with edible dyes, and providing excellent eating quality, i.e., the substrate does not substantially alter the taste and texture of the chocolate, would be highly desirable.